It is known to show advertisements on a display in a navigation system on board a vehicle when the vehicle is driving down a road.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 7,089,264 discloses a “virtual billboard” showing an advertisement to an user of a navigation device if he passes a predetermined “virtual billboard” location along a road. The specification is not very specific as to what is “shown” to the user. FIG. 9 seems to suggest that the advertisement is an audio message to the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,317 discloses a navigation system with a three-dimensional display of a scene on a display of a navigation system on board a vehicle. The three-dimensional display shows an image of an area as also visible through the windscreen of the vehicle driven by a driver. The navigation system is programmed to calculate a route to be driven by the driver from a starting location to a destination location. The navigation system generates an image of an arrow having a direction in accordance with a next manoeuvre necessary to be performed by the driver in accordance with the calculated route. The navigation system is also programmed to process the image and the arrow such that the arrow is overlaid over the image on the display such that it indicates the road segment in the image to be taken by the driver. In an embodiment, U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,317 discloses to wirelessly supply road information on-line from a service provider to the navigation system such that data can be shown on the display that is updated real-time. By doing so, for instance, a restaurant visible on the display can be highlighted to attract attention from the driver and other passengers of the vehicle. Virtual bill boards or blimps flying in the sky with advertisements and the like can be shown in the generated scene on the display.
PCT/NL2006/050265 discloses a mobile mapping system that can be used to collect pictures of real world buildings as well as laser scan samples relating to those buildings. The pictures and samples are stored in a memory. A sub-set of the laser scan samples relates to façades of buildings. Moreover, the memory stores location data as to each laser scan sample and the picture. The picture includes data as to a wall of the façade and data as to texture elements in the wall. A processor automatically identifies the wall in the picture and the texture elements in the picture while using the laser scan samples. Some texture elements, like wall portions, doors and windows, may be automatically removed from the pictures after being identified in this way and be replaced by a reference to a reference texture element. This document does not disclose ways to dynamically update images on predetermined portions of objects in a scene shown on a display in a navigation system.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,041 discloses a network-based navigation system. The system has a user interface and a computer server that can access a map database, an actual imagery database and an advertisement database. The map database comprises geographic map data. The actual imagery database comprises a plurality of images of roadways taken by a camera from a driver's perspective. Such a camera may be mounted on a special data acquisition vehicle used to drive along the routes before the images are used in the navigation system. Together, the images correspond to a 360 degree field of view. The advertisement database comprises advertisement data. The user can request the system to provide visual route guidance information for display on a display. The system may guide the user to a destination along the route by continually recreating a view along a virtual road as the vehicle virtually travels down the road. Traveling along the virtual road as shown on the display is generated by showing to the user via the display a sequence of the images as taken by the camera earlier in time, thus creating a virtual “drive-thru”. The system also replaces a polygon region in the actual imagery with an advertisement from the advertisement database and, in this way, shows the advertisement to the user of the navigation system as if it is present on the polygon region in the actual imagery.
A disadvantage of the system according to U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,041 is that the sequence of images on which the drive-thru is based comprises images taken after one another at a certain time delay. When shown to a user in series they may suggest to simulate a video of traveling along the roads but actually they only show a jerky sequence of still images. Moreover, the images are taken from well defined points on the road thus providing only a 2D basis for the simulated 3D view on the display.
The field addressed by the present invention relates to showing messages like advertisements on 3D objects in a 3D environment as shown on a display of a navigation system, which navigation system may be a “virtual” navigation system. Virtual navigation systems may be defined as systems with which a user can virtually move, for instance with an animated vehicle, through a 3D world as, for instance, supported by suitable software on a computer system or by a suitably programmed website. Below, when the term “navigation system” is used reference is made to both physical and virtual navigation systems.